Monday, December 21, 2009

The Demon Beep is gone! For the past 16 months, we've had an unwelcome house guest - a mystery beep coming from somewhere deep inside the walls. Every 35 seconds, it beeped its mocking, taunting metallic chirp. That's 403,201 shrill little tweets. It went out fighting - 24 hours of strangled whining, and then - nothing. Silence. Sweet silence.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Woke up to 6-7 inches of pretty snow, but the weather is getting worse - cold and windy. Michael and Lily went for a hike in the woods. The streets are pretty bad. Still have to buy some Christmas presents and run a million errands before Tuesday. But we have hot chocolate.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Michael and I went out to dinner to celebrate our 17th anniversary. Went to a Belgian restaurant, Mannequin Pis, for Belgian beer, mussels, and french fries. Mmmm. Many thanks to Ken and Maggie for giving us the night off!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

My relatives in Spain have run a hardware store since 1870 - that's three generations. They have a web site that contains a history section, with these old photos. I did my best to translate the Spanish.

1915 - hardware store and bar.

The little boy all the way to the left is my grandfather, age 4. He had 4 brothers and two sisters.

1936 - the business was hard hit by the Spanish Civil War, with supplies being requisitioned and sent to the front.

This Halloween would have been my grandparents' 80th wedding anniversary. Leo and Anna, or Jimmy, as everyone called her, were married in 1929. Sadly, no one can recall ever seeing their wedding photo, and there's really no one left to ask about the wedding. All my Dad remembers hearing is that it froze the night before, and all their mums died.

We don't need a wedding photo to know, however, that they were a sweet and loving couple to each other and to their family and friends. They were truly loved.

With 4 of their 5 grandchildren, sometime in the 80s (look at our hair) at the Bavarian Inn - I think celebrating Grandpa/Bebop's birthday.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Today was the annual neighborhood Halloween parade. As always, the weather was perfect (10 years in a row, it seems). Unlike always, I stayed home to try to sleep away a bad cold. Michael took the photos. I did watch the parade from our front steps with Baci - who for some reason spent the whole time facing away from the parade and toward our house, with the occasional bark at the reflections in the front door. She's just not quite right these days.

Parade kickoff.

Lily and her new school friend Gina.

It was a fun-filled weekend - and we have a whole week to go until actual Halloween.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Lily and I took a fast trip to Florida this weekend. We flew to Orlando and spent the first night with Grandma and Grandpa at Disney's Not-So-Scary Halloween party. Lily loved seeing Disney all decked out for Halloween, and said the parade was her favorite part of the trip (#2 was seeing Chico, #3 as G&G's pool). Speaking of the pool:

Monday, October 12, 2009

Deb: Lily, you look so tall and grown up.Lily: What do you mean?Deb: You look like you're 6 or 7, not 5.Lily: Is that good?Deb: Sure, I mean you look and are acting like a big girl. I'm very proud of you.

Monday, October 5, 2009

We took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Charlottesville, VA, this weekend. Perfect weather, beautiful town, learning-filled day at Monticello. I'm reading Annette Gordon-Reed's Pulitzer Prize winning book The Hemingses of Monticello, which triggered the visit.

The hotel (which was free because I had Hilton points) had an indoor pool and was full of people in tartan because the Clan MacGregor was having its annual reunion. Lily busted a gut at the guys in kilts.

Dumplings in the historic downtown.

UVA Rotunda, designed by Thomas Jefferson.

Rotunda dome

Monticello garden.

Monticello

Monticello

I was impressed that Lily asked why there were no statues of slaves at Monticello. However, my pride at her budding sense of social justice was dashed when she said she hoped they sold refrigerator magnets with slaves on them...a 5-year old sometimes misses the nuances.